


Persona: Equipoise

by altro_x



Category: Persona Series
Genre: F/M, Gen, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altro_x/pseuds/altro_x
Summary: The world runs on equilibrium, and lately, it has been disturbed.At Nila's new school, some students speak of shadows that haunt them from their reflections. Some even convinced the shadows will kill them. And for them, the only way out is by destroying every reflective surface they see. Afraid of what will happen, Nila herself decides she must get to the bottom of the problem because surely, surely, she can handle it.But maintaining the balance of the world is too much for one person. Especially when not everyone who realizes there is something wrong is willing to take action.
Kudos: 5





	1. Seven of Coins, Upright

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction is an original story located in the Persona universe. It features Indonesian characters, locations, references, and also personae based on Indonesian folklore. I’ll try to explain everything as clearly as possible, but if you have any questions, please drop them in the review! I’ll answer and add them all into the extra information page!
> 
> As there might be unfamiliar things, such as the Indonesian school system, I encourage you to check out the extra information page first since I put pieces of information I can't really put inside the story that non-Indonesian readers might find unfamiliar there.
> 
> Please also note the mechanics I used in this story are based on all persona games, from 1 to 5. From mechanics in those games, I picked ones I think will be appropriate, altered some, and created new ones (some probably influenced by Kuzunoha Raidou because I’ve been playing that game these days hehe) for the story, so expect to see mechanics you probably aren't familiar with!
> 
> As probably you would’ve guessed, I’m not a native English-speaker, so any critiques or corrections about the words I’m using are appreciated!
> 
> Be aware that this story contains suicide attempts, violence, and other possibly triggering stuff. It’s definitely not full-on gore but there are depictions of it. If you can handle those things, then please, take a seat and enjoy the story.
> 
> Lastly, special thanks for Puyo for being the beta reader.

* * *

_Everything in this world needs balance._

_Light and Dark, Good and Bad, Order and Chaos.  
_ _We can’t have one without the other._

_They form a cycle. They coexist in equilibrium._

_And unless the balance is kept;  
_ _The world will be torn apart._

_Only those who take responsibility for their actions will realize such things._

_Even then, though, there’s no guarantee they are willing to keep the balance._

_But as with Despair, there’s always Hope—and those who wish to act upon it._

_And when given the chance, will you take it?_

_Will you become one of them?_

* * *

  
**Seven of Coins, Upright**

**Tuesday, 4th of September 20XX  
** **TransJakarta Bus, route XX**

A slightly robotic feminine voice echoed in the bus, announcing they're nearing the next stop.

Nila turned her attention from her phone to the digital board showing the name of the stop nearest to her new school. She glanced once more to her phone, staring at the last message sent by her underclassman from her last school before switching the display off and putting it in her shirt pocket. 

No matter how hard he begs her not to move school, there’s nothing he can do. She has signed all the necessary documents, donated her old uniforms and books, even writing a formal apology to the school principal she despises so much. Nila sighed and adjusted her red tie. There’s no reason for her to go back.

The slightly robotic feminine voice echoes again, this time announcing their arrival at the bus stop and reminding the passenger to watch their step as the bus starts to slow down.

A few seconds after the bus stopped completely, the doors opened. Some passengers, one or two wearing the same white shirt, black and brown checkered u-neck vest, and gray skirts as her, started walking out. Nila followed behind them. 

The bus stop is not too crowded, as it’s quite a small one compared to other stops.

After getting off this stop, she’s supposed to walk around five minutes to her school. And from even from inside the stop, she can already see the sign with her school name written in big caps.

SMA Caturangga—Caturangga Private High School.

It’s not the really popular private school that all the celebrities children attend, just a modest private school with quite complete facilities at a reasonable price, so she heard.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t had the time to see the facilities aside from the principal office. She didn’t even manage to attend the ceremony for transfer students they held yesterday since she needed to deliver her apology letter in person right after signing her documents.

She glanced at her watch. It’s 06:05, only ten minutes before the gate will be closed.

Not wanting to waste more time, Nila quickly scanned her card at the ticket gate, put it back in her backpack, and walked out of the bus stop.

As she walked, Nila realized the air is fresher than she expected, even though it’s in Jakarta. She guessed it’s because there’s quite a lot of trees and bushes around, and most cars didn't linger around. A few people with work-like attire passed by her, walking to the bus stop she dropped off earlier.

Then, out of nowhere, a blue butterfly fluttered by her face. 

Unlike any butterfly she has seen before, this one is fully blue in color, even almost transparent. It flies in a circle around her, calling her to stop… take a closer look… 

Its allure makes her stop walking and fails to realize the black-suited man who’s walking behind her while looking at his phone.

Then, the man screamed. 

Surprised by the sudden sound, Nila turned around. But before she knew what’s happening, she felt someone bump her shoulder, hard. And a hot splash of liquid hit her left arm.

After starting to feel the hot stinging sensation, Nila slowly looks at her left sleeve. There are a coffee stain mark and cappuccino smell coming from it.

“I-I’m sorry…” the man who bumped into Nila is now crouching on the sidewalk, sounding tired as he tries to pick up his phone and the coffee cup which already spilled all of its contents onto his phone and the sidewalk.

“I’m also sorry for stopping so suddenly.” Hoping to help the man, Nila crouched in front of him. “Do you want me to accompany you to the service center? Your phone is pretty soaked.”

But he just shakes his head, slowly picking up his badly cracked smartphone with a noticeable trembling hand. He also tried his best to look away from the screen, like he’s trying to avoid something on the turned off-screen.

“It’s fine. I’m the one walking while holding my phone and suddenly screams like there’s something wrong with me after all,” he laughed nervously and put his still wet phone inside his suit pocket before slowly getting up. “And you’re a student, right? You’ll be late if you stay here any longer.”

He’s right. But she can’t just leave him. It’s partially her fault.

Nila also gets up. “But can’t I at least give you some money for the repair cost?”

“As I said, you’re a student. Your money is better used elsewhere,” he laughed again. “Besides I don’t want to look at that phone anymore… I don’t need it.”

Don’t want to look at his phone anymore? That’s a weird thing to say. Usually, people want to check their phone after it’s all cracked up and soaked like that.

Probably noticing the confused look Nila gave him, the man sighed. “Don’t worry. I’m just tired.”

“Then please take a rest. I don’t think you should be going to work in those clothes.”

“Maybe I really need to take a rest,” he sighed and scratched his nape. “If those shadows don’t stop talking and disappear from everything I see… I should do something about myself…” he followed with a nervous, dry laugh.

Hearing his last sentence makes Nila kind of nervous. Do something about himself? What does he mean by that?

“Anyway, you should really go,” the man turned his gaze to Caturangga’s front gate. “I think they will close the gate in a few minutes…”

Quickly Nila turned to see the school gate and realized there were only one or two people running inside the gate. She’s really going to be late if she keeps standing around.

“Then, please excuse me,” Nila turned once more to the man, looking into his tired eyes. He seems… kind of hollow. It doesn’t look right. Like something is missing, something that should be there is just… flickering… slowly fading…

But Nila quickly brushed the thought off because it’s not polite and maybe he’s just tired like he said.

“Be careful on your way,” the man smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

“You too,” Nila turned around and started to run towards Caturangga’s front gate.

* * *

After passing through the barely opened gate, Nila quickly searched for a sign that points to the bathroom. As she walks towards where the female bathroom sign is pointing to, just around the corner, she can hear some female students standing near XII IPA 1 class door looking at her and whispering in not-so-quiet voices.

“She’s probably also a new student,” one glanced at her.

Another one followed her supposed friend by throwing a glance at Nila before laughing. “Not as good looking as Mer, though~”

“Hey, HEY! HOW DARE YOU!” One of them pointed at the girl who just laughed and exclaimed with a loud voice. “You can’t compare anyone to him! Meliant is an angel! His beauty is incomparable to any human being!”

“Turn your voice down, simp,” the girl next to her sighed. “If she can’t before, she definitely can hear us now.”

But Nila doesn’t stop walking and keeps acting like she didn’t hear them. She doesn’t get why they still have time to stare at another transfer student and keep comparing her with this ‘Meliant’ guy, considering the class should start in around a minute. And he has a more important thing to worry about than people talking about her though, like, the big coffee stain on her left sleeve.

Nila entered the bathroom, and quickly closed the door behind her. She scanned the quite clean bathroom and went straight to the bathroom sink.

After putting her backpack on the edge of one of the sinks, Nila realized there are no mirrors nailed to the wall above them. There’s supposed to be at least two or three above each sink, especially in a private high school like this, but Nila is only staring at the light blue wall with a more brightly colored section on the part of the wall where the mirrors are supposed to be.

She dismissed questions about the mirrors that started popping up inside her head and reached for the front pocket of her bag, pulling out a box of tissue. Then she takes one out, soaks it with water, and begins to wipe the coffee stain off her sleeve. She doesn’t think the headmaster and the teachers would mind the stain, but at least she needs to make it less noticeable. 

As she cleans the stain, she diverted her thought to the man who bumped into her. Why was he suddenly screaming? Why did he refuse to see his phone screen? Why did he act like it’s not the first time he screamed like that? Why did his eyes look hollow?

He also didn’t seem bothered by his phone breaking. Not really a normal behavior for someone who probably lost some of his data. There’s always a possibility of him already backing up everything, but adding the fact he’s putting a wet phone in his pocket without checking if it’s still working is definitely wrong. And the look on his eyes didn’t look right.

What’s wrong with his phone anyway? He’s acting like it’s possessed by shadows or something.

A sound of bathroom stall door opening echoes in the bathroom, followed by a mumble of a girl.

“Ugh, not even X IPA 3 want to share their answer…” the voice owner seems to have closed the stall door again. “And chemistry starts in the third period…”

Nila sighed. This early in the morning and this first year is already asking other classes for answers… at this rate, will anything change from her old school?

The girl walked towards the sink and from the corner of her eyes, Nila can see she stopped on the one right next to her.

After a minute filled only with the sound of running water and Nila throwing the used tissues away, she felt someone poking her right arm. Nila stopped patting her sleeve and turned to the girl who apparently stands slightly shorter than her. 

“Heya there. One of the new transfer students, right?”

The girl has messy moss green locks and a side bang clipped with a fox hair clip Nila pretty sure has seen her nephew wear once. Even though the girl wore the Tuesday uniform—white shirt with a gray skirt, and a red tie that doesn’t look tied on properly—she wears a light brown cardigan instead of the vest she’s supposed to wear. 

She grinned, her orange eyes gleaming mischievously. “You’re not confused why there are no mirrors?”

Well, Nila is confused but she’s not really thinking about asking her about anything. She has got enough things to think about.

But despite Nila not giving any indication of interest whatsoever, the girl starts talking.

“Last week a class XI student randomly started screaming and punched all the mirrors here into pieces while crying, saying something about a shadow trying to kill her. It takes two guards to stop her and she’s still crying when they take her home,” she laughed, “she made it seem like it’s a big deal, but that shadow is probably just a ghost. You know, the usual stuff~”

Not only did that girl destroy all the mirrors into pieces with her bare hands, but she also kept screaming about a shadow… that’s trying to kill her… just the mental image is enough to make Nila shudder. And the way this green-haired girl told the story in such a carefree manner only made Nila more nervous. Doesn’t matter if she truly saw a ghost. After something like that, this bathroom should be sealed and have that incident reported to the police.

But the shadow that girl saw… it reminded her of ‘those shadows’ the man who bumped into her this morning was talking about. They might not be related, but the way they both use the word ‘shadow’ to describe it certainly caught Nila’s attention.

“Well, thanks for the info.” Even though she didn’t really ask for it, the information is actually interesting, if not alarming.

“No problem!” the girl giggled cheerfully, curling a bit of her hair with her right index finger. ”I just know everything around here, hehe.”

The over-the-top giggling kinda put Nila off, but she just stood there silently. 

“Welp, now I need to go back to class, so I’ll leave first!” after smiling for one last time, the first-year walked out of the bathroom, forgotten to tell Nila her name.

But it’s not like Nila needs to know her name anyway, since she’s not sure if she will meet that girl again. What she needs to think about now is searching for the headmaster’s office, not about the man who’s afraid of his phone screen, the girl who punched mirrors into pieces, and the… shadows. Not them. Not them.

Nila put back the tissue box inside her bag and pulled the zipper close before slinging it to her back and walked out of the bathroom.

* * *

The gold-plated sign on the door reads ‘Headmaster’s Office’ in big letters, making Nila sure this is the place she’s been looking for.

It’s kind of weird that the headmaster’s office is located on building C, which is located quite far from the front gate. But at least she won’t mistake the office for something else thanks to that obnoxious sign.

Nila knocked on the door. Once, twice. Then came a voice from inside the room.

“Who is it?”

“Nila Reswara, the transfer student.”

“Oh?” the voice sounds surprised. “Please, come in!”

Nila turned the knob and slowly pushed the door. The hinge creaked as if it rarely opened. And right when the door is opened, Nila can feel the cold breeze coming from the air conditioner. The room is decorated with framed pictures and shelves of trophies, with a desk and chair where the headmaster is sitting, and a beige sofa right in front of it. She walked towards the headmaster.

“Welcome, welcome,” the man who looks like he’s in his mid-fifties with dark gray hair and cheerful smile welcomed her. The nameplate in front of him reads ‘Wibowo Hermawan, Headmaster’. It’s in the same golden-colored plate with the same big font as the sign nailed on the door.

“Nice to finally meet you, sir,” Nila smiled a polite smile, extending her hand above the desk to initiate a handshake. She’s pretty sure the headmaster can see the coffee stain on her left sleeve but probably decided to ignore it in the name of politeness.

The headmaster returned her handshake and laughed. “Nice to meet you too! It’s just too bad you can’t come to the transfer student ceremony yesterday,”

“I had other things to do.” Nila released the handshake and took a few steps back. Her old headmaster’s face flashed by but she ignored it.

“Oh well! At least you’ve finished signing your documents, so it all turns fine!” he linked his hands together and laughed. 

At that moment, Nila remembered about the girl who destroyed the bathroom’s mirrors. She really wanted to ask about how she's doing, and if the incident has been reported yet, but her mind keeps telling her to not speak about anything. To make a good impression.

So Nila bit her tongue and swallowed her words. Maybe next time, after she knows the headmaster a little better. Besides, it’ll probably sound weird if the new student asked about something that happened before she arrived there. Nila will only make herself look like she’s trying to dig up the school’s bad side.

“And since you’ve already finished all the registration business, let me show you to your cla—” 

Suddenly, the door creaked open, loudly, as a feminine voice with a Japanese accent shout echoed in the quiet room.

“I-I’ll do it, Mister Wibowo!”

Both Nila and the headmaster turn around to the source of the voice.

A fairly young-looking woman wearing the teacher’s uniform is trying to catch her breath and leaning on the ajar door. She used her left hand to pat strands of her light brown hair falling off from her ponytail while putting her other hand up, asking the headmaster to wait a minute.

Nila recognized that teacher. She’s the same teacher that helped her sign documents yesterday. It’s Ms. Amaya, or Kiyoshima- _sensei_ —as she would prefer Nila called her—the Japanese language teacher for X and XI IPS.

“Ms. Kiyoshima, why are you here? I thought I asked you to check the newest books’ arrival.”

“That’s… already done,” Ms. Amaya, seemingly already managing to catch her breath, walked towards the desk and stood right next to Nila, giving her a small wave. Nila responded by politely nodding.

“I hear Nila is finally coming today and I want to help her get to know her class, because, you know, I’m responsible for XI IPS 2, riiight beside her class. And since I’m going to drop by mine anyway, I think it’ll be more convenient if I’m the one who took her there, right?” 

“But I intend to give her a tour around the school first…”

So she also missed a school tour after the transfer student ceremony yesterday, Nila noted.

“I can be the one giving her the tour,” Ms. Amaya smiled and patted Nila’s left shoulder, trying to be as friendly as she can. “Besides, um, aren’t the parents of Raihan from XII IPS 1 coming today? It’s better if you don’t miss them by going out so suddenly.”

“Raihan’s parents…” After staring blankly at the documents at his desk for a few seconds, the headmaster smiled. “Well, I almost forgot, haha. I guess you could take her to class.”

Ms. Amaya removed her hand from Nila’s shoulder and smiled. “Great! Then… we’ll go now. Class already started anyway!”

“Please be careful on your way and try to not fall on the stairs again, Ms. Amaya,” he gives a smile.

“Um, yeah… thanks, Mr. Wibowo.”

After that, Ms. Amaya walked out of the headmaster’s office, with Nila following behind her.

They walked to building A in silence, with Nila examining her surroundings. Just south-west of the building, near the parking lot, there’s a big and spacious garden, with a few benches and a big willow tree near a fountain. That definitely took a lot of maintenance, seeing how tidy it is.

“Oh, Nila, about the school tour, do you mind if we do it tomorrow? I don’t think I have too much spare time today,” Ms. Amaya who’s walking just in front of Nila suddenly spoke.

“It’s fine,” Nila answered. It’s not like she's really hoping for the school tour anyway. She could just explore the school on her own anytime, and there’s not really too much benefit from getting a school tour.

After a minute of walking, they finally arrived at building A’s stairs.

“Your class is on the second floor, along with other XI IPS classes,” Ms. Amaya explained briefly as they started climbing up the stairs.

At the quarter landing of the stairs, the blank wall caught Nila’s attention. It looks similar to the lighter colored blank wall in the bathroom, which means there was a mirror there. And it means there’s more to the story of that girl who destroyed the bathroom mirrors.

Deep down though, she doesn’t want to hear about people destroying mirrors with their bare hands anymore.

Nila caught up to Ms. Amaya and walked on her right side.

“Kiyoshima- _sensei_ , was there a mirror there?”

But instead of answering straightforwardly, she turned away from Nila and tapped her fingers together. “Well, there was one.”

And that was it. She didn’t elaborate any further.

But Nila wasn’t about to push the already nervous teacher to a probable breakdown, so she stopped walking for a few seconds, letting Ms. Amaya walked a few steps ahead of her.

Nila already knows about the reason why there are no mirrors in the bathroom, and she can only deduct there must be a similar reason why there’s no mirror on the quarter landing of the stair since there’s no way the school just took off something that’s considered part of the facility for no reason. If so, it’s actually quite understandable why Ms. Amaya doesn’t want to talk about it—Nila tried to convince herself—even though she’s still very curious about these… mirror incidents.

Before she realized it, they finally arrived in front of a classroom with a hanging ‘XI IPS 1’ sign above it.

Ms. Amaya turned to Nila and smiled nervously. “Well, here’s your class! Ferdian is most likely still managing his mess of a lab so… I’m going to introduce you to your class.”

Now standing in a more quiet place, where they’re not walking, Nila felt it’s the time to talk to Ms. Amaya about her nervousness. It’s almost like she never dealt with students before and maybe that’s actually what made her so nervous.

“Is this your first year teaching, _sensei?_ ”

“N-no, it’s actually my third year. I just… feel quite nervous these days…” she tapped her fingers together. “It’s the first year—since I moved here, of course—we get transfer students and it’s also the first time I helped manage documents for the said transfer students.” Under her breath, she continued to mumble, “and not to mention one of them is quite famous…”

Nila is pretty sure Ms. Amaya is talking about that ‘Meliant’, because she’s not famous in the slightest, and that one female student she met before seems to hold him in high regard.

“Well, I think you should relax a little. If it’s your first time managing transfer students, I think some mess is understandable.”

“That’s… true, I guess.”

“Then you should act more confident,” Nila looked Ms. Amaya in the eyes. “People will take you more seriously if you’re confident.”

“That's really good advice,” Ms. Amaya let out a long breath and tapped her fingers together again. “I’m sorry if I act too nervous. I’m just worried about you.” 

Why? Nila wanted to ask. Is it because she’s a new student? But before she could voice her thought, Ms. Amaya continued.

“Sometimes Mr. Wibowo…” Ms. Amaya glanced around, trying to search for the right words. “... doesn’t hesitate to assign random tasks to students… especially to someone he remembers; I just don’t want you to be burdened by his tasks. So, if he gives you any random task, tell me, okay?”

So Mr. Wibowo also likes to pass around his smaller responsibility to students, just like some faculty members in her old school.

Since she doesn’t want to get involved with helping faculty members again, if he suddenly asked her to do something, she will definitely decline his request. But still, Ms. Amaya seemed to be genuinely worried about her, so Nila replied to her with a smile more genuine than her polite smile, but is still being done out of politeness.

“I’ll make sure to tell you.”

Ms. Amaya sighed in relief and turned back to the classroom door, holding the knob. “Okay then. Let’s go in.”

As soon as Ms. Amaya entered the room, the students fell into silence.

“Okay class, since Mr. Ferdian isn’t here yet, I’m going to be the one introducing you to the new student in this class.”

It’s her cue to step in. Nila held her head up before walking into the class and stopped beside Ms. Amaya.

“Please introduce yourself,” Ms. Amaya smiled at her.

“I’m Nila Reswara,” she paused, gazing at each and every student in the class. “Nice to meet you all.”

Some students answer her introduction with a ‘nice to meet you too’.

“Thank you for the introduction, Nila,” Ms. Amaya seemed to approve of her simple and short introduction. And fortunately, Ms. Amaya doesn’t really care that Nila didn’t state what’s her former school. That makes this a whole lot easier.

Then Ms. Amaya pulled out a small key from her pocket before handing it to Nila. “Here’s your locker key. The number of your locker is written on it. You can open it at lunchtime.”

Nila grabbed the key and held it in her hand, because unfortunately, Tuesday's uniform doesn’t have a pocket, and she hasn’t got time to make pockets on her skirt.

“You can take a seat beside… um… what is your name?” Ms. Amaya points at a male student with blonde hair who sits at the furthest right column and the second seat from the last row. Left to him are two empty seats.

“I’m Gibran, _sensei_!”

“Nila will sit next to you, so lend her your notes until she has her own, okay?” Ms. Amaya tapped her fingers together again, probably doing so to ease her nervousness.

Gibran smiled. “Will do!”

Then, Ms. Amaya turned her attention back to the class. “Mr. Ferdian isn’t here yet, so you guys should read over your notes first. What chapter are you learning right now?”

One of the female students raised his hand. “We’re currently at the digestive system.”

“Then, please, keep your voice down and wait until he arrives.”

The whole class erupted into a ‘Yes, _sensei_ ’, and Ms. Amaya nodded to herself with a proud look on her face.

“Well, I’m going to my own class now.” She glanced at Nila. “You go to your seat, okay, Nila?”

Nila just nodded.

After Ms. Amaya left and the class started to talk among themselves again, Nila started walking towards her seat.

As Nila sat on her seat, she heard a voice from her right, talking to her.

“So, you’re the new student we’ve heard so much about,” Gibran placed his chin on his left hand and glanced at Nila.

Nila glanced back, meeting his green eyes. She laughed lightly, hands focused on hanging her bags on the hook on the right side of her desk. “I think you’re confusing me with someone else but nice to meet you too.”

“Nah, the class is also curious about the student who skips the ceremony, not just the one who attended.” He pulled out a few books and a pencil case from his drawer. “So, do you skip ceremonies regularly or…?”

“I just have more important things to do yesterday.” Nila put her locker key on her drawer before finally turned to the boy beside him. “Now, do you need me to do something before you can share your biology notes?” 

He picked a blue binder folder from the book stack on his desk and leaned to Nila to give it to her. “I think you already did something when you gave Kiyoshima-sensei that pep talk.” 

So he heard her talk with Ms. Amaya. 

While maintaining eye contact with him, Nila grabbed the folder and smiled politely. “Eavesdropping isn’t a good thing to do.”

“I’ll make sure not to do it next time~” Gibran laughed with a carefree tone before turning back to his seat. 

He will definitely do it again. No doubt.

Nila sighed. What’s the deal with this Gibran? He’s definitely the nosy and annoying type, she doesn't know if she can handle sitting next to him for the whole year… 

As she opened the binder, Nila realized it’s categorized nicely, with sections for each subject. She started flipping the pages until she found one titled digestive system. The notes are aesthetically styled in different colors and written in unexpectedly neat handwriting.

From her backpack, Nila pulled out her leather binder folder—that she’ll use for the whole school year—and her pencil case before jotting Gibran’s note down. She has studied the digestive system chapter by herself the week before, but a refresher is always necessary.

Half an hour passed by as Nila wrote her notes in silence, while sometimes glancing at her surroundings. Some students read their notes like Ms. Amaya ordered, some talk with their friends, and Gibran is apparently busy scrolling through his phone the whole time.

Just after Nila put her pen back in her pencil case, the classroom door burst open.

“Sorry I’m late! I forgot to wear my watch today!”

A man who looked mid-thirty walked into the class, his dark orange hair messily sticking onto his forehead. In his right hand, he’s holding a few thick textbooks, and his left is put inside the pocket of his lab coat. That’s Mr. Ferdian, Nila assumed.

But why is he putting on a lab coat? Aren’t they supposed to learn from a textbook on Tuesday? And why is that lab coat really dirty?

He sat down at the teacher’s desk—without even remembering to close the door—and opened one of the thick textbooks he brought.

“We’re almost finished with the digestive system, right? Open up your textbook…”

Nila raised her hand. “Sir, I still don’t have the textbook.”

For a few seconds, Mr. Ferdian just squinted at her with the whole class falling into an awkward silence. And then, he finally talked.

“Wait. Who are you?”

Did he seriously forget there’s going to be a new student in his classroom?

“I’m a new transfer student,” Nila pulled her hand down.

“Aah, of course, the new student,” Mr. Ferdian nodded to himself.

“Yes, sir.”

“... and what is your name again?”

She can hear Gibran and a few other students trying to hold their giggle in. And oh, how it annoyed her.

“I’m Nila Reswara.”

“Okay. Reswara,” he cleared his throat. “I’m Ferdiansyah, your biology and homeroom teacher. And because you still don’t have the textbook, ask the one next to you to share his.”

Gibran raised his biology textbook. “Don’t worry, sir. I will share it with her.”

“Now that’s finished, let’s finish the chapter so I can give you the task and go back to my lab.”

Nila sighed and pulled her desk closer to Gibran who had the biology textbook opened and an annoying grin on his face.

* * *

The lunch bell rang.

“That’s the bell.” The Mathematics teacher looked at the clock at the wall above him. “We’ll wrap it up here.”

Finally. 

Nila starts to drag her desk and chair back to her original place. Sitting beside Gibran and hearing him talk is enough to give her a headache.

The teacher goes out of the class and the students finally relax. Some are staying in the classroom, talking to their friends, and pulling out their lunchbox, and some walked out of the classroom, presumably to the cafeteria, where Nila is heading to after she finished cleaning up her desk.

Before she leaves, Nila turns to Gibran, who ‘s pulling out a dark green lunch box from his drawer.

“You’re bringing your own food?”

“Yup, I prefer to save money,” he patted the top of his lunch box, smiling proudly.

Nila nodded, grabbing her locker key from her drawer and put it inside her bag. If she has enough time to cook the next morning, maybe she’ll try and bring her own lunch.

Out of the blue, the speaker in the right front corner of the classroom starts playing a short cheery tune before it cuts off and a masculine voice can be heard.

“To Nila Reswara from class XI IPS 1, you are summoned by the headmaster to his office. I repeat, To Nila Reswara…”

“You should go.” 

Nila turned to Gibran who’s opening his lunch box. A smell of roasted chicken came from it. “The headmaster doesn’t really like waiting.”

“Is that so…” she sighed. The smell coming from Gibran’s lunchbox makes her hungrier, but now that the headmaster is calling for her, she probably can’t go to the cafeteria for at least the next 15 minutes. And why’s the headmaster calling for her anyway?

“Now, now, Nila, it’s probably important.” Gibran starts spooning his food, still with that smile on his face. 

“I hope.” She stood up from her seat and dragged her feet out of the classroom.

With that, Nila walked to the headmaster's office, trying her best to ignore the smell of food and chatter of happy students that are coming from the cafeteria which is conveniently located just northwest from building C.

When she arrived at the front of the door, Nila paused a little. She’s still wondering, why did the headmaster call for her? It could be because of the school tour thing, but… it also can as easily be what Ms. Amaya warned her about. Still thinking, Nila knocked on the door.

“Ah, Nila! Just open the door.”

He really sounded eager and it doesn’t necessarily mean a good thing. 

Nila slowly opened the door, entered, closed it, and approached the desk.

“I didn’t expect you to come to this fast, Nila.”

“I think it’s better to talk to you first and finish all business before I go eat,” Nila shrugged lightly. And to her surprise, the headmaster laughed.

“Well, that’s a good answer. But you must be wondering why I called you here,” he linked his hands together. Not waiting for Nila to answer, he continued. “Well, since you’re a transfer student and you’re still unfamiliar with the school, I want to assign you to something.”

One of her assumptions was right then. This is what Ms. Amaya was talking about. 

Based on her experience, the headmaster probably is assigning her to do something unimportant that he doesn’t want to deal with. And assuming the headmaster knows her reputation at her old school, he probably thinks she will agree to help him.

But she already has experience with helping faculty members who think just because she helped them ease their job once or twice, they can make her do anything. she doesn’t want to go through that again. Nila just hoped she could decline and get out of here as soon as possible.

“What do you want me to do, sir?” Though fully intended to decline his assignment, she still maintains a polite smile.

And with a genuine smile on his face, Mr. Wibowo speaks.

“I want to assign you to put away all the mirrors still up in this school.”

* * *

Nila rested the mirror on the wall in front of her and stared at it. It reflected her purple eyes and strands of black hair that started to fall from her milkmaid braid—that started to loosen up—as she moved too much when she took the mirrors down from X IPA 3’s wall.

Why did she agree to this?

She thought she'd decline the headmaster’s request, go out to the cafeteria, and eat lunch. But instead…

Nila sighed; tucking some of the strands back to her braid before standing up.

Well, she did go to the cafeteria and eat lunch, but after school, she went to X IPA 3 and took the wall mirrors there down, carefully carried them to the storage building at the other side of the school, and put one of them inside a room on the second floor of the storage building with some other mirrors that had been moved by the cleaning staff before, probably.

Now she only needs to move the mirror she left at the first-floor hallway since she can’t carry both of them at the same time.

But she still keeps her gaze on the mirror, standing rooted on her spot, a part of her still can’t believe she agreed to put away all the mirrors in the school. Moving mirrors is definitely not her, or any student’s job to that matter, and she should’ve declined Mr. Wibowo's request.

She should’ve given him a polite smile, said ‘No, thank you, I have better things to do’ and left.

But her conscience doesn't let her walk away. Not when the headmaster said most of the cleaning staff has become paranoid too and no one wants to move the mirrors. Not when the mirrors are a hazard and seemed to be related to this weird incident which made this girl want to destroy them because of the shadows.

Nila might be wrong, though. This might be only a one-time problem. Maybe the mirror on the quarter landing of the stair is not there for a different reason, and she’s accepting the headmaster’s task for nothing. The shadows the girl and the man she bumped into this morning are seeing might be connected; it could also be mere coincidence. Maybe she won’t gain or prevent anything by doing all these heavy works.

If so, at least she tried.

Nila dusted off her finger and glanced at the window. It's already around 17:00 and she’s still standing around inside a dusty storeroom. She really needs to get the mirror she left in the hallway, put it here, and go home before dark.

She walked out of the storeroom without closing the door, and slowly started to descend down the stairs to the first floor. As she walked, a sob reached her ears, slowly turning into crying. Nila paused for a second. The storage building was supposed to be empty, so why is she hearing someone crying?

And suddenly, a loud crashing from the hallway of the first floor. 

She quickly ran to the source of the sound. 

Her breath is caught on her throat. The mirror that she brought from X IPA 3 and rested on the hallway wall is now laying on the floor, shattered, with a male student slouched, crying in front of it. 

All alarms on her mind blare. This is a worst-case situation. This is what she was trying to prevent. She needs to do something. Anything. Get that boy away from the mirror before he starts smashing on it.

“Hey,” Nila weakly calls. She doesn’t want to scare that student, but she also doesn't want him to hurt himself.

The student seemed to ignore Nila. Or he didn’t hear her. All he does is staring blankly at the mirror shards as Nila slowly inched towards him. He’s not punching the mirror yet, so Nila keeps telling herself there’s still hope he wouldn’t start screaming like the girl who destroyed the mirrors in the bathroom.

But instead of looking like he’s going to break the mirror again, the boy grabbed one of the shards, big enough for him to hold with both hands.

Visibly shaking, he’s slowly forcing his hand to bring the shard near to his neck. Closer. Closer. Closer. He shuts his eyes closed, sweats dripping, bracing for impact. And Nila finally realized what he’s trying to do.

Before he could make the final swing, Nila dashed to him. As quickly as she can. As fast as she can run.

Dropping on her knees, grabbing the shard forcefully from the boy’s hand.

“What are you trying to do?!” her words sound a little shaky. She’s panicking. She starts losing control. But why wouldn’t she?! A fellow student was about to kill himself in front of her! 

The boy lifted his head up and slowly turned his head towards Nila.

“T-the bastard in the mirror…” his eyes are filled with tears, drop by drop, it drips down his cheeks, wetting his face. “He said if there’s no him, then there’s no me… so, if I don’t kill myself along with t-that bastard, he… won’t disappear…”

Those hollow eyes… the trembling… the tired face…

Nila scrambled on her feet while trying to stand up. Someone in the mirror who talks to him and won’t disappear? Killing himself? Some parts of his words, the way that he looks… sounds kind of familiar. But her mind is a jumbled mess. She can’t remember anything. Everything seemed to shift and blur. Her only focus is on the boy in front of her.

“What do you mean by ‘him’?!” Nila took a few steps back, glaring at the student. And this time, focused her gaze on his eyes. 

“The shadows…”

When he said those words, it all clicked together on Nila’s mind.

His face, his hollow eyes reminded her of the man she met this morning and, of course, the student that destroyed the bathroom mirrors… Nila laughed at herself. How could she forget? She was trying to save people from ending up like that girl. She doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the same fate as her. Why was her mind blank? Is she not determined enough?

The shadow haunted both the man and that girl… and now, this boy in front of her… 

Is her assumption correct? Are the shadows that all of them see are the same? But why? Why would a shadow terror people? Why would they make the student in front of her… try to do this? 

What is going on…?

The male student shakes his head hard. “THERE’S NOTHING ELSE I CAN DO!” his trembling starts getting worse, “J-JUST GIVE ME THAT MIRROR!”

And before Nila could run, he lunged at her.

At such limited time, she can only raise her hand, still gripping on the mirror shard as hard as she can, hoping he can’t reach it.

Nila isn’t taller than the male student, but fortunately she can swing her hand left and right fast enough. In his frenzied state, he can’t react fast enough to reach it. He can only cling to Nila’s right arm; pulling, pulling, trying to drag her down. But she resisted.

“Who’s ‘he’?! What does he want?! What does the shadow want?!” Nilla yelled as loud as she could. “Tell me!”

But the student only grabbed onto her arm tighter and shook it. “HE’LL KILL ME! SHE’LL KILL ME! THIS TIME IT’S NO LIE, THEY SAID! IF I DON’T DO IT FIRST… THEN… ALL OF THEM… THE SHADOWS…”

Faintly, she can hear sounds… music… bells… it’s hurting her ears… it’s pulling her in, just like that butterfly… 

She doesn’t want to hear the sounds. She wants to close her ears with her hands, she wants to plug them so, so, so badly. But… she can’t let go of the shard. Nila closed her eyes shut. All she must do now is get the shard away from him… from the shadows—

“BAYU!” 

Steps are approaching them.

Nila is not sure where that came from, but she’s pretty sure someone is coming. Someone has come to help the student who’s trying to kill himself.

Suddenly, she could feel the boy who was clinging on her hand being pulled away, and she opened her eyes again.

Two security guards—apparent by their all-black uniform—pulled the boy away by his hands. He’s still screaming though, crying and trying to reach any shards of the mirror still left on the floor.

Feeling a weight lift off her shoulder, Nila’s feet started to melt, failing to hold her weight, and she fell onto her knees. Her breath sounds ragged. Has she been holding them the whole time?

“Escort him to the headmaster’s office!”

She turned her attention to the masculine voice. A man with the teacher uniform stood, busy adjusting his glasses while barking commands.

How did he know something was happening? Why does he know where to find that boy or her? The storage building is quite isolated. Only those who want to take shortcuts to the old part of the gymnasium would pass by. But how would that student know Nila was putting the mirror off anyway… 

The teacher walked up to her. 

“Reswara, are you okay?”

After a few deep breaths, Nila managed to speak. “I’m okay.” 

As okay as she can after stopping someone from jamming their throat with a shard of a mirror anyway.

“Sorry I can’t attend to you now, but,” he turned away for a second, “please accompany Reswara to the infirmary.”

“Right away, sir.”

Only now Nila noticed the presence of the male student with brown hair. Or maybe it’s dark red? It’s hard to tell when he’s standing quite afar. Even when he starts walking towards them, Nila still isn’t sure what color his hair is.

She shook her head. No. That’s not what’s important right now. Her grip on the mirror shard doesn’t even loosen for a second.

“Come on, I’ll help you stand up.”

The male student stopped at her right side and started to pull Nila up by her shoulders.

The teacher let out a sigh and adjusted his glasses again as he watched Nila slowly stand up. “I really need to go now. Take care of her.”

“Don’t worry, sir.”

After that, the teacher followed the security guards who had got out of the storage building with that student. And she didn’t even notice them going out.

Before they start walking, the student glances at Nila’s right hand and the blood that slowly drips from it.

“Just leave that, the janitor will clean them.”

“No, I want to take it.”

She needs to know what caused that student to try and kill himself. She needs to know why he was scared of the mirror. She needs to know why the man she met this morning and the girl who destroyed the mirrors in the bathroom act like that. She needs to know what’s the deal with the shadows.

Nila breathed out. “I need it.”

“If you really insist, let me hold it, then.” He let go of his right hand from Nila’s shoulder and proceeded to pull out a handkerchief from his pocket.

But Nila still can't trust this guy. He might look calm but she can't be sure he won't try and stab himself with the shard too.

"Are you sure you're going to be careful about it?" she glared at his light blue eyes that looked so calm—too calm, like an eye of a storm.

"Your hand is bleeding. It's better if I'm the one holding it."

“I’m… not…”

Even though Nila tried to deny it, she can slowly feel the opening in her palm’s skin, the blood dripping slowly, slowly, down to her wrist, her arm, sticking to her skin; oh, how the way the dust that gets into the wound makes it more painful.

Nila grunted in pain and tried to open her right palm, hands shaking. 

The boy grabbed the big shard from Nila's hand and carefully put it on his handkerchief before wrapping it up as best as he can. The white color of the handkerchief starts to turn red as the mix of Nila’s and the blood of the student who tried to stab himself starts seeping through the material.

Ah, Nila almost forgot. That student is now carried by the security to the headmaster’s office. She closed her eyes. Her whole body feels very tired and she only wants to lay down but no, she can’t fall asleep. She still doesn't know how that student is doing. Is he still freaking out, is he is still screaming, is he still wants to kill himself because of the shadows…

“Raise your hand above your heart.” 

The sudden voice of the student beside her woke Nila up from the lull of her mind. 

“Um, ah. Okay.” she answered absent-mindedly and slowly raised her right hand as high as her shoulder. “Is this fine?”

“That’s alright,” the boy—who had put the mirror shard away, presumably—grabbed Nila’s right shoulder again. “I’ll walk you to the infirmary, so don’t fall asleep.”

After what seemed like a few hours for Nila who keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, they finally arrived at the infirmary, which Nila has never seen before. It’s probably located somewhere on building B, but she couldn’t care about that right now. All she can think about between the silence in her mind is the shadows, that student, and why all of that happened.

The boy who’s been helping her walk knocked on the door, but still opened it without waiting for an answer.

“Ah, Langit. Why are you here?” A feminine voice that sounds kinda muffled came from the room. Nila tried her best to stay awake and scanned the room that she entered.

The walls are white and the air smells of medicines, just like a normal infirmary. Amongst the sharp smell of the medicines though, Nila can also smell… cheese.

“Who is that?” The voice came from a tall woman with a nurse uniform sitting in front of a desk filled with papers and books while eating a bag of cheese puffs.

“Someone who needs treatment,” Langit helped Nila sit down on one of the beds.

“Well, duh,” the nurse licked her fingers before wiping it on her skirt. She puts her snack down and picks up a white box that Nila recognizes as the same first aid kit box she has in her home from under her desk. 

“Let me guess… it’s the mirror again?” the nurse shook her head, walking towards Nila and Langit and placing the first aid kit box beside Nila. “Honestly, I don’t get why the students here keep doing dumb things.”

The way she talks really irks Nila. This nurse is talking like she’s not even in the room, and she blamed the students for being haunted by the shadows. But before Nila could protest, Langit spoke up.

“Actually she’s not the one who destroyed the mirror this time. It’s Bayu.”

“Bayu who?” the nurse turned to Langit.

“From XI IPA 3. And he tried to kill himself with the mirror,” Langit said with a flat face. 

After a split second of processing the news, the nurse freaked out.

“HE WHAT?! Are you serious?!”

“Yup. He’s with the headmaster now.”

“UGHHH, darn it!” she groaned and started messing up her hair. “Langit! I’ll go there! You take care of this girl!”

And then, she ran out of the infirmary in a rush, her heels clicking loudly against the empty hallway’s floor.

Nila sighed. That nurse didn’t seem to really care about her job. Or the students.

“That’s just how she is,” Langit said, almost like he’s commenting on her thoughts.

Langit pulled out red-rimmed glasses from his collar, which Nila only realized was there just now. Treating normal glasses like sunglasses and letting it hang on your collar seemed a little bit weird, but with what’s been happening in this one day, it doesn’t really surprise her that much.

After putting the glasses on, Langit rummaged through the first aid kit box.

“You should wash your wound first,” he nudged his head to the direction of a sink. “Use soap to wash around it.”

Without protest and still holding her hand above her heart, Nila slowly walks towards the sink.

Above the sink is a wall mirror, similar to the ones in X IPA 3, if not a little bit smaller. And just by seeing her reflection on it, imagery flashed on her mind. A female student smashing the mirrors inside the bathroom, pounding her hands on the surface, smashing, smashing, smashing, shattering the mirrors, wailing and crying like Bayu, screaming about those shadows…

Nila tried to distract herself from that thought and keep reminding herself she needs to put away all the mirrors faster so she can prevent that from ever happening again.

She tries her best not to look at the mirror while cleaning her wound, and after she finishes, Nila quickly goes back to sit on the bed.

Langit already took a stool and placed it in front of her. He adjusted the way he sits before gently takes Nila’s right hand, palm upwards, and starts applying a strong-scented ointment to her wound with a q-tip. The coldness kind of sting, but it helps Nila clear her head again.

She took a deep breath. She should thank this student. He brought her to the infirmary and even volunteered to treat her wound. 

“Langit, right?”

The boy looked up to face Nila, and she met those light blue eyes again. The calmness reflected on him really suited his namesake; Langit—the sky. “Thank you.”

“It’s no big deal,“ he went back to focus on her wound.

And now that Nila thinks about it, why was he in the storage building in the first place? 

“Did you call the teacher?”

“Yup. I was just passing by. When I heard something break, I went inside and see Bayu on the floor. So, I went to get Mr. Santoso. He needs to call the securities first though, so we’re kinda late,” he shrugged. “Fortunately you’re there though, so he didn't get time to kill himself.”

“That’s certainly fortunate,” Nila winced, feeling the ointment cold sensation as it started to cool down. “This has happened multiple times, right?” 

"Yet they wouldn’t report it, probably afraid they would destroy the school’s reputation,” Langit didn’t even move his attention from Nila’s wound. “And how do you know this has happened before?”

“I heard about the girl who destroyed the bathroom mirrors.”

“Oh. Ayu.”

The way he said it… it’s like it's no big deal for someone to destroy mirrors into pieces by bare hands because they see shadows on them kind of make Nila remember the girl she met in the bathroom that morning. Both seemed really aloof about the incident. Are all people in the school like this?

Langit pulls out a strip of bandage he had cut beforehand from the first aid kit box and starts bandanging Nila’s hand.

“So after you heard about her, you decide to investigate it?”

“I’m not doing an investigation or anything,” Nila glanced away nervously. “I’m just looking out for people and… doing what I think is right.”

“That’s commendable,” Langit murmured. He wrapped Nila’s palm, once, twice, thrice. 

There’s a few seconds of awkward pause before Langit continues talking.

“It’s been happening for a few weeks now, and all the school does is getting rid of the mirrors on the crowded places.” 

“What about the students? Their parents? They didn’t file any complaint?!” Nila’s voice sounds sharp. But she can’t hold her tongue anymore. It's just so bizarre. Why would the school not take any steps? And why didn’t she hear anything about this incident before she entered the school?

Langit shrugged. “No one has called the police. I don’t know why.”

Everything seemed more suspicious the more information she had about it. And her regret of coming to Caturangga started to grow, even though this is still her first day here…

She still couldn't believe no one reports the school when their child destroyed a mirror with their own hands and rambling about these shadows. 

Nila sighed. She needs to calm down. If she wants her question answered, she should ask the headmaster herself. “How many times has this happened?”

“Four, excluding Bayu.”

Five students have been haunted by these shadows and all of them have probably destroyed at least one mirror. And by what she heard from Bayu and the story about that girl, they do the latter because the shadows are… in the mirror or something.

It sounds weird and not really possible, but so are these shadows who apparently can draw people to do dangerous things. 

“How’s their condition now?”

“They haven't returned to school yet, but at least none of them tried to kill themselves.”

“Bayu is the first one then?” 

“Yup.”

Somehow, hearing that makes Nila a little bit relieved.

After a few more seconds of silence, Langit finished wrapping Nila’s hand and put adhesive tape over the end.

“That’s all done.”

Langit closed the lid of the first aid kit box and walked to the desk where the nurse was sitting to put it back where it belongs.

Meanwhile, Nila tried to move her fingers. To her surprise, it can move quite freely despite being bandaged. The bandage actually didn’t feel too constricting. Langit must know what he’s doing because this is a good job in her book.

“Thank you for bandaging me up,” Nila said, her eyes met with Langit again. 

“As I said, it’s no problem,” he takes off his glasses and puts it back on his collar. Langit then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the mirror shard, still bloody and wrapped in his handkerchief. “And here’s your piece of mirror.”

He walked towards the bed where Nila sat again.

“I don’t know if you want it cleaned or not, so take it as it is,” Langit put the bloodied handkerchief on the white bed sheet, right beside Nila. “Just take the handkerchief.”

Pretty sure anyone sane would wash the blood off first before keeping it, but Nila already owed too much to Langit and she didn’t want to keep him standing there any longer.

“Well… thank you. Again.”

“I’ll go home first then,” Langit said as he started to walk to the door. He glanced back at Nila. "And I'll tell the security to expect you, so just take your time.”

“I will,” Nila tried her best to smile.

Then, Langit walked out the door and pulled it closed, leaving Nila alone with the silence and the faint smell of cheese puff that still lingers in the air.

She glanced at the opened window. The sky outside of the infirmary window starts turning from orange to dark blue. It's probably almost 17:40 now, and yet, she's still at school. At least she’s not in a dusty room anymore. But her sister will be so worried if she comes home late—especially with her right-hand condition now.

Her eyes automatically moved back to inspect her bandaged hand. Langit did a good job, and for what? He could’ve just done the bare minimum of cleaning her wound; instead, he bandaged her up and even talked about what he knew about the incident. And Nila is still not sure why he went to such an extent

It’s clear that Langit has an interest in the mirror incidents and the shadows, based on how much he knows. But why? And is that interest a good thing? Nila can’t ensure Langit won’t also turn frenzied and try to stab himself with the mirror shard. 

For now, she’s not sure she can trust Langit yet. Who knows what he wants from her.

Nila’s gaze turned to the still bloodied mirror shard and handkerchief. And she sighed for the hundredth time. This was a wild first day.


	2. Nine of Wands, Upright

** Nine of Wands, Upright **

** Wednesday, 5th of September 20XX  
** ** Caturangga Private High School, XI IPS 1 Classroom **

Nobody is talking about Nila, surprisingly.

When she walked to her class this morning with her bandaged hand and all, she could hear whispers about Bayu and how he destroyed a mirror, but nothing about her. Or the fact that Bayu tried to kill himself.

She couldn’t care less about being popular, but when people didn’t know about the suicide attempt, a thing that—even though she didn’t want to admit it—is probably what the whole school most likely will talk about for a month, it’s quite apparent that something besides the shadows is doing something, and Nila didn’t like it one bit.

“Nila, hey, can you lend me a blue pen?”

Gibran’s muffled voice snapped her back to reality. She opened her eyes and glanced at him. He has his head planted on his desk, seemingly didn’t even care about rumors about another student destroying a mirror.

“Why do you need a blue pen?” 

Gibran sighed, head still planted on his desk. “Ms. Helena doesn’t accept notes written in black and I forgot to bring my blue one.”

Nila nodded and started rummaging her pencil case for her blue pens. “Some teachers are just like that. What subject does she teach anyway?”

“Sociology,” he scowled, “she likes to make us write our thoughts about various things…”

“I’ll lend you one, but don’t forget to give it back.” Nila picked up one of her blue pens and leaned to Gibran’s desk.

“Sure thing!” he replied, picking his head up from his desk, looking more cheerful. As he’s reaching for the pen, Gibran examines Nila’s still bandaged right hand.

“What’s with the bandage?”

Quickly, Nila answered. “I cut myself against glass yesterday.”

And that wasn’t a lie. Just half-truth. Or maybe quarter-truth, considering she didn’t specify it was a mirror.

Gibran took the pen from Nila’s hand and laughed. “Be a little bit more careful with your hands, would you, Nila? You won’t be able to write a lot of things if you hurt it too much.”

“Thank you for the tip, Gibran.” Nila smiled politely and turned back to face her own desk. She’s not in the mood to talk with Gibran today. All she could think about is what happened yesterday and why no one heard about half the story today.

Nila remembered about the forums she frequently visited and thought—maybe, there’s someone who experienced something similar to the incidents there. It’s not a small world after all.

She reached for her phone in her right pants pocket. Fortunately, the scout uniform pants have built-in pockets, so she can carry her phone without hassle. After turning the display on, Nila realized the notification for new messages from her underclassman is on the top, with the date stamp from a few minutes ago.

He should just calm down and realize she won’t come back. Nila sighed, ignoring those messages completely and went to open a new browser tab.

Half an hour of browsing the forums and groups, and talking to some of her online friends later, Nila put her phone back down on the table.

Nothing came up. Neither any of her friends or people on the forum and groups she visited talked about these incidents.

She still can’t believe it. No one outside the school is talking about it. Is she missing something? Is she not searching well enough? Maybe she needs to be more thorough… Why is this incident so isolated anyway?

For now, maybe she needs to try and search for information from someone inside the school. The headmaster is the one assigning the task of removing mirrors to her, so he should know at least something about the shadows. But it wouldn’t be easy to get information out of him. From her experience, headmasters care more about the school's reputation than the children’s safety. And considering how these shadows are a big risk, it’s going to be hard to do. 

But Nila would never back down until she tried doing it first.

Suddenly the classroom door is pushed open by a teacher with really long and silky brunette hair. Her voice is loud.

“Good morning everyone, please put your notebook on my desk. I’ll start checking them right away.”

Nila put her phone back in the desk drawer. She needs to study first, but she will definitely visit the headmaster at lunchtime.

* * *

After the lunchtime bell rang, Nila quickly tidied up her books and went out of her classroom, only answering Gibran's ‘are you going to the cafeteria’ with a simple ‘not really’ before continuing walking. 

She walked down the stairs and kept on the left side of the first-floor hallway. It’s not crowded since the bell only rang a few minutes ago, but Nila would prefer to not walk among a bunch of people when she has things to do. She’s not 100% sure if the headmaster is in his office, but at least she can try going there first.

"Hey, you~! Transfer student!"

Nila guessed that energetic feminine voice referred to her because aside from that really obvious nickname, she recognized that voice. She stopped walking and turned back.

A green-haired girl walked towards Nila, giggling. “You look busy.”

Nila guess was right. It’s the girl she met in the bathroom yesterday. The one who told her about the bathroom incident and claimed to ‘know everything’, if she remembered correctly. 

And if this girl really knows everything, she might know why there’s only a part of the story that’s spreading.

“No, not really.” Nila approached her, making sure they stopped on the less crowded part of the hallway. If she wants to know what this girl deal is, she needs to play along. “What do you need?”

“Well~” the girl glanced at Nila’s bandaged arm. “I’m just curious about your hand.”

That’s definitely not suspicious, Nila thought to herself. There’re two possibilities on why she’s suddenly asking about her hand. One, this girl genuinely didn’t know about Nila’s involvement in yesterday’s accident, and her question is just out of pure curiosity. Or, two, she’s trying to get something out of Nila. And Nila isn’t sure what she's trying to accomplish if she’s asking because of the second reason.

“At least tell me your name first. It’s not polite to ask for someone's private information when you’re just a stranger.” Nila took a few steps forward and smiled politely. But both her and the girl know that kind of smile holds a certain degree of threat. Nila guessed the girl just didn't want to complicate the matters and gave her name quite easily.

“Dianti Putri Safitri. But you can just call me Dianti.” she curled a bit of the hair with her right index finger and did an over-the-top giggle like yesterday.

“Okay, Dianti. As you’ve probably already known, I’m Nila Reswara, one of the transfer students,” said Nila. “What are you curious about?” 

After a split second of pause, Dianti talked again.

“Where do you get that injury?” 

“I cut myself against a mirror,”

“Ah, a mirror?” she looked intrigued. “Is there a chance it’s the same one that Bayu broke? You know, that playboy from XI IPS 2.”

Her suspicion is confirmed quite easily, it seemed. Dianti knows something. Nila just nodded, bracing herself for Dianti’s response.

“Let's get this over with, then.” Dianti laughed and cleared her throat. “You were there, right?” Her tone changed. It sounds more serious. Too serious. “Yesterday.”

Nila didn’t intend to back down from finding out what Dianti knew. “Yes. And if you’re asking that, you must know something about the shadows.”

“... you’re trying to know more about them?” Dianti massaged her right temple before looking back up at Nila. Nila answered with a nod. 

“You shouldn’t poke your nose into things that you don’t know. You’re going to mess everything up.” her orange eyes look sharp. “It’s dangerous.”

Mess everything up? Why would she do that? She’s just trying to help!

“Are you… threatening me?”

“I’m just giving you advice.” 

“That’s not advice.” Nila tried to hold her voice down. She doesn't want to attract too much attention—especially when they’re talking about something unknown like the shadows. Ah, they really should've talked somewhere quieter… 

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Nila,” said Dianti, leaning back a little bit. Her cheerful and bubbly aura is all gone now. 

Of course, she didn’t know what she’s getting into. She didn’t know anything about the shadows, Nila wanted to say. She only learned about their supposed existence yesterday!

Trying to ease Dianti, Nila leaned in and opened both of her arms. “If the shadows are dangerous then we should—”

Suddenly, a familiar bell sound starts echoing.

Nila quickly gripped her head and closed her eyes. The noise made her head feel light but not as bad as yesterday…

Why… there’s suddenly bells sound? Nila is quite sure there’re no mirrors near her, but she’s still scared. What if someone, somewhere is trying to kill themselves? What if she can’t stop them? She didn’t want that. She didn’t want anyone to be hurt.

Slowly, her headache subsided, leading her to open her eyes.

And everything seemed to stop.

The chatter and laughter, the students who are walking near them, the faint sounds of a basketball bouncing from the main court; all of them just stopped. Silence.

“What… happened?” Nila’s voice comes out a little bit shaky.

A gust of wind hits her cheek. It almost like time stopped. Not exactly time though—just, people around her. The wind still blows, the leaves are still moving, the water from the pipe is still falling, dropping down to the drainage. Everything seems normal, and the only difference is the students that were walking near her are stopped right on their tracks—except for Dianti and her.

“This… happened again. And now, of all time.” Dianti sighed, putting her hands inside her pants pockets. She glanced up at Nila who’s still stunned. “... you really got dragged into this, huh?” she continued under her breath.

Before Nila could ask Dianti more, she heard steps coming from the stairs. Someone is walking down the stairs. When most people are… frozen. Still a little bit scared, she looked at the staircase as the sounds of the steps getting nearer.

Who could that be?

Her heart raced as the steps were getting louder and louder, as the figure descended further and further. Eventually, she locked eyes with the person in the stair.

It’s Langit. He stopped walking right as their eyes met.

Langit is… not frozen. He’s moving despite everyone else suddenly stopping, just like her.

But why? Why are most people stopped frozen anyway? What’s going on?

“Ah.” That’s the only thing Langit said. His face looked shocked for a second before he averted his eyes and continued to walk down the stairs with what seemingly looks like a calm expression.

After he came down from the stairs, he approached Nila and Dianti. “So you’ve been unfrozen the whole time?” Langit directed the question to Dianti. “That explains the quality of some rumors that you spread.”

Dianti sighed and massaged her temple again. “I’ve been avoiding him all this time, but because of you.” Dianti glanced at Nila. “Now he knows he’s not alone.”

“Why am I at fault here? I only want to know more about the shadows!”

Dianti threw her hands up and took a few steps back. “And that’s exactly why you’re here!”

Nila needs to stop for a few seconds and process what Dianti just said. Time suddenly stopping has something to do with the shadows. This is getting weirder and weirder.

Then she remembered what she's about to say just before time… stopped or something. “Like I said… if this is really dangerous, we should work together.”

Dianti calmed down a bit. “But what if you can’t do anything about the situation?”

“I’ll try to do something then,”

She definitely can do something. She’s going to try her best. And if she’s not strong enough—she's going to find a way.

Dianti let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay! Fine! I’m the one who spread the rumor and cut you out of it—”

“Along with the fact that Bayu nearly killed himself?”

She should know how dangerous these shadows are! They drove people to destroy mirrors, and even made one nearly kill himself! 

“Oh, so you want people to talk shit about him?!” said Dianti.

“Of course not! I just want people to be more aware!”

“Are you that fucking ignorant to actually know how rumors can ruin someone’s life?! How can they be easily twisted?!”

“N-no! I’m—” Nila clenched her fist and sighed.

If she wants to convince Dianti without lashing out herself, there’s only one way. She doesn’t really want to talk—or even remember—about it, but she also doesn’t want to argue with her. 

“I have experience with it, okay?” Nila’s voice came out sounding a little bit forced. She looked straight at Dianti's eyes. “I know what you’re talking about.”

Dianti swallowed her words. Her expression is a mix of confusion, concern, and regret. Then she forced herself to face away from Nila.

And after a few seconds of deafening silence, Langit finally spoke up.

“You guys should probably talk in a less crowded place,” Langit, who has been leaning on a nearby pillar and observing the conversation, walked up to Nila and Dianti. “Unless you guys are fine being stared at by frozen people.”

“We really should,” Dianti said, walking over to Langit, refusing to look at Nila’s direction. “The storage is a good place. No one goes there.”

Ah, the storage building. Nila recalled her day there yesterday. If she could, she would rather not go there ever again, but considering how the sight of people frozen and looking like they could move their eyes at any moment already makes her uncomfortable, it’s probably the safest place to be.

Dianti starts walking in front of Nila and Langit. Nila is sure Dianti still wouldn’t want to talk to her just yet so talking to Langit about what’s happening is more plausible. She caught up to Langit who’s already started walking and paced herself to his left side.

“Well.” Nila glanced at Langit. “you’ve experienced this a few times before?”

He keeps a straight face. “Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me yesterday?”

Langit shrugged. “Why should I?”

She wanted to argue about why he wouldn't talk about a really important thing like how time suddenly stopped is a recurrence around here, but on the other hand, she also didn’t trust him the first time they met, and it seems the same goes with him.

Besides, (she glanced at the frozen students she passed by) Nila isn’t sure she would trust him if she didn’t experience it by herself, like now.

“Fair enough,” she mumbled. “So what did you do when time stopped?"

“I follow the bells.”

“The bells?” Nila stopped to think for a few seconds. “Is it the same one that rang before time stopped?” And when Bayu tried to take the mirror shard from her, Nila added to herself.

“Yes,” he faced Nila. Langit has a ghostly, almost invisible grin on his face. "It sounds quite ethereal and alluring, doesn't it?"

Ethereal… Nila hesitated to call something that caused time to stop and draw people to madness as ethereal. But it is alluring. Just like the butterfly she saw yesterday.

Ah. The butterfly she saw yesterday.

She only remembered just now. That butterfly doesn’t let out any sounds, but it still has the same alluring effect as the bells. But maybe the butterfly is just beautiful and unusual. Maybe she’s overthinking it again. Maybe both of them didn’t have any correlation and she’s just looking for a logical explanation for… everything.

They took a left turn, heading towards the back of building A. 

“You hear the bells loud and clear in your ear when time froze, but after it, you can faintly hear bells from somewhere.” Langit continued talking. “From behind a certain door, to be specific.”

Nila turned all of her attention to Langit. This is something she never heard of before. 

“Behind a door? Which one?”

“It’s always different each time. And every time I’m about to open it, time just suddenly starts again or the door gets stuck,” said Langit. 

The bells are marking certain doors… but what is behind those doors? And why would it change every time?

“... so the bells are the key to all this?”

Langit looked right at Nila with somewhat of a blank expression on his face. “I don’t know. Maybe you can ask Dianti or find it out for yourself,” he turned his head to face forwards again, ending the conversation there.

Finding it out herself… Nila laughed inwardly. Langit really encouraged her to know more about shadows, huh.

If everything that Langit and Dianti said is true, which Nila still doubts they are, then the bells and the time-stopping is caused by shadows, but what are the shadows? What caused them? And why did they drive people to madness? So far she can’t see any logical explanation to any of them.

Without Nila realizing, they finally arrived in front of the storage building. The wooden double-leaf door is opened by Dianti, letting sunlight pour inside, lighting up the whole hallway. And by just seeing the building… it made Nila shudder, the events she went through yesterday rose again, still painted vivid in her mind.

Slowly Nila walked in behind Langit. The boy, the broken mirror, the screaming, the girl in the bathroom, the man she bumped into, the shadows: all of it overwhelmed her mind. Fortunately, Dianti talked again, distracting Nila from her thoughts.

“This is where I usually stay when time stops.” Dianti grabbed the knob of one of the doors, a little bit too close to where Bayu broke the mirror yesterday. Above it, there’s a hanging wooden sign with the words ‘Gallery’ on it. So the storage building was a functioning building, Nila noted. “I’ll go in first and clean up.” 

As soon as Dianti went inside the gallery room and closed the door with a loud bang, Langit leaned on the nearby wall, and Nila followed suit.

She still didn’t trust him fully, but between Dianti and him, he’s the most trustworthy and encouraging person that’s also able to move when other people are frozen. Even though Langit said he didn’t know much about this… situation, since Dianti still refused to tell her more, Langit is the only one she can ask about it.

For now. Nila has set her heart to convince Dianti into letting her help search for more information about the shadows.

“Are you close to Dianti?” asked Nila.

“Not really,” Langit looked out to the gaps of a nearby boarded up window. “She’s just considered a gossip girl or something and I talked to her about gossip, rumor, those kinds of stuff. Quite popular, probably because she’s the main student who knows everything around here.”

“So you know most things about shadows by asking her?”

“Aside from being stuck in this frozen time and exploring it myself? Yes.”

“And you don’t feel bothered by the headache you feel when time stops?”

“That’s temporary. After the third time, it just feels like you blink and everything is now frozen.”

It’s kind of a relief that she won’t feel too much headache if she’s trapped in this stopped time nonsense again. Well, as much a relief as it can be.

“Which doors have you heard bell sounds coming from?”

He hummed for a few seconds before answering. “Last time was the gym door, the time before it was somewhere on building B that I didn’t find, then the theater building…”

“They didn’t seem to have any correlation.”

“That’s what I thought too.” he shrugged. “So it’s kinda hard to find where the doors are, especially when the bell sounds are so faint.”

And out of the blue, they started hearing chatter from afar.

“Oh. Time started again.” Langit looked out of the opened door.

That was a nonchalant remark. But well, time stopping is already a weird enough thing, so time returning to normal is less weird than that.

“You should tell her time had started again, in case she didn’t notice.” Langit sank his hands in his pants pocket. “But don’t argue around.”

“I only want to ask a few questions,” said Nila, standing back up. “It shouldn’t be that long.”

“If you’re taking too long I’m going to leave first,”

“Do so if you want,” said Nila without even looking back. 

She walked to the gallery door, put her hand on the knob, hesitating, thinking about how Dianti would respond to her question and what she should do to convince Dianti that she wanted to help to deal with the shadows. She pushed the doorknob down and pushed it open.

“Dianti, time start—”

But when Nila glanced over the whole room, she realized that it’s empty.

Dianti is nowhere to be found.

Hearing no response from the underclassman, Langit popped his head into the room. “Huh? Where did she go?”

“I don’t know,” Nila answered and stepped inside the room. Her shoes clacked at the wooden floor as she’s walking, directing her eyes to examine every inch of the room.

The room's only source of light is the sun shining from the windows. It makes floating dust around her visible and easier to avoid. The room itself is filled with photo frames and used canvas; some are stacked, some leaned on the door, and some are hanging on the wall. Most of them look dusty with a bit of wear and tear. Some are just straight-up broken into pieces. It doesn’t look maintained at all, except for one spot in a corner where there’re two nearly broken down chairs arranged to face each other.

“Maybe she sneaked out.” Langit, who had gone inside the room, is also looking around.

“We were standing right next to the door.” Nila gestured at the door that’s already closed by Langit. “And it makes too much noise. We should’ve heard it.”

“Then,” Langit's eyes darted to the windows, “The window.”

One of the windows is opened quite wide, and it is certainly big enough for someone to climb or even jump through if they’re athletic enough. But Nila still wonders why Dianti is running away. She closed her eyes and sighed. Did she really didn’t want Nila to be involved in this shadows business?

After a few moments of silence, Nila faced Langit. “Hey, should we—”

“You can look for her if you want.” Langit waved his hand and walked back to the door. “I want to eat lunch first.”

Nila wants to disagree and keeps searching for Dianti, but her stomach rumbles side with Langit. She glanced at the open window one more time. Maybe she needs to take a break before searching for Dianti and ask some questions.

But Langit, who wanted to get out as soon as possible ran into a problem.

“Ugh—the door…” he tried to turn the knob with two hands. But from the sound it's making, it didn’t seem to even budge. 

Confused with what’s happening, Nila approached Langit.

“Huft. Maybe we should try going out from the window too,” he said, starting to walk to the window.

Nila stepped in between Langit and the door. “No, let me try first,”

As she wiggled the knob, Nila started hearing something. A faint melody… music… bells… from somewhere distant… it ringed in her ears... 

She glanced at Langit and they both looked at each other with knowing expressions.

Suddenly, the door opened with a click. Even when Nila didn’t try to turn the knob anymore. The door slowly opened, but behind it isn’t the hallway of the storage building. All there are a dimly lit hallway and rows of hanging clothes on the other side of it.

It's definitely not something a school would have on a storage building. And it’s definitely dangerous.

But she heard the sounds of bells right behind this door; so it’s supposed to be one of the doors that Langit said he can’t open.

Then, why is it open now? She looked back at Langit.

“As I said, I’ve never been able to open them.” he didn't sound concerned at all. Nila dismissed his aloof answer and turned back to the more important thing, the door.

Why is this door suddenly open to somewhere else is the main question. The second more important question is where does the other end of the door lead to.

Nila braced herself and put her right foot beyond the doorway. The unknown floor didn’t collapse. It seemed fine. And she put her other foot in, entering the door.

Her logic tells her that stepping into a weird place that suddenly appeared when there’re shadows that urged people to do dangerous stuff is something she shouldn’t do, but if she wanted to know what’s the source of those bells and learn more about the shadows, she needed to see what’s on the other side of the door.

Langit followed behind her and looked over to the left side of the hallway. “This is not the school.”

“This looks like a backstage of some sort.” she examined the backside of the door they came in through. There must be a reason why this door can be opened, unlike any other door that Langit has encountered before. Unless, well, he’s lying to her. But Nila put that behind her and focused on what’s in front of her.

This side of the door looks like a normal wooden white door, but at the top part there’s an inscription carved on it. Nila can’t read it too well under the dim light, but she’s quite sure it’s neither Bahasa Indonesia nor English. And before Nila could try to decipher what it was, she heard a loud crash behind her back.

“Langit, are you okay?” said Nila while glancing over the whole room.

“Behind here.”

His voice came from behind the dark-colored curtain that covered a part of a hallway. It’s placed just above a set of stairs with a brighter light peeking through it.

Nila shook her head. Only a few seconds and Langit is already running around. Just how aloof he is about this whole thing?

“Don’t go anywhere too far.” Nila half-shouted and started walking towards the curtain. There’re so many things on the hallway’s floor that Nila stumbled over a few cables and nearly bumped into a stage light before she reached her destination. 

She shifted open the curtain, peeking her head through it. 

In front of her is a long black-colored catwalk, surrounded by metal audience seats. And Langit is standing near the seats on the other end of the catwalk.

Nila walked above the catwalk, glancing over the dimly lit room. It’s a fashion show venue. But why is the storage building door connected to this venue? What caused it? Is it really the shadows? If so, what do they want from doing something like this? There are still so many unanswered questions.

She stopped at the edge of the catwalk, staring at Langit’s back. He’s still busy picking up a chair that he presumably knocked down. “What are you doing?”

“I want to go to the door there.” Langit pointed to a light brown colored double-leaf door at the end of the room. “But these seats are a pain to move.”

Nila sighed. “If you want to see it, don’t go by yourself. We’re in who knows where. It’s better if we stick together.”

Langit just hummed as he adjusted the metal chair to face the catwalk again. Then he turned to Nila. “Do you think this is related to the shadows?” said Langit, adjusting the glasses on his collar so it doesn’t fall off.

“I don’t know… I’m not sure.” Nila paused, glancing up to the ceiling. The lamp is the shape of some cocoon-like abstract sculpture; something that you would see at a high-class event, really cementing that this is somewhere where she shouldn’t be. “But you heard the bells too, right?”

“Yes. And because of that, we shouldn’t leave this place without investigating what’s the cause of those bells. Who knows when we can open another door again.”

Nila quickly looked back at Langit. “You really want to investigate?”

“You don’t?”

“No, not that! I want to! It’s just… kinda surprising.” Nila's laugh sounds hollow. She jumped down the catwalk, following Langit. It’s been a long time since someone is willing to go along with something that she does.

Langit shrugged and gazed at the audience’s seats. “Let’s walk through these chairs and search for the source of those bells then.”

The audience seats are so close to each other that Nila and Langit must rearrange them together after they move past since there’s no way they can walk without moving the chairs around a little bit.

And after a few minutes of struggling, they finally got past the seats and stood in front of the door. Langit pulled both of the doors open, and they’re greeted by what looks like an endless hallway.

The wall is painted deep scarlet red with a streak of gold. Lining the hallways are vases and weird abstract sculptures—just like the lamp above the catwalk, just smaller—on small tables. Unlike the room with catwalk, the hallway is dimly lit, with only small lamps on walls lighting the room with their yellow bulbs.

“Ladies first.” Langit gestured to Nila to walk first.

Nila blinked once, twice. “You know, we can just walk side by side.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll watch your back. You take the front,” said Langit. He waved his right hand.

She wasn’t asking for his permission but whatever. Nila sighed. Arguing won’t solve anything, and will only prolong their stay in this place. She walked first, letting Langit walk a few steps behind her. 

They walk and walk and walk. The hallway keeps going and going. Nila felt like they had walked a few kilometers already. A thought crossed Nila’s mind; maybe the hallway is endless and they’re going to walk forever. It’s certainly a possibility, with all the shadows, ghostly bells, and the fact that this place suddenly showed out of nowhere. Who knows what they will face next. 

But just as she’s about to lose hope, she saw something in the distance.

“There’s another door," she exclaimed.

At the end of the hallways is a double-leaf door like the one on the catwalk room but this time it’s bright white, making it quite visible even from afar.

“Maybe we can find something behind there,” said Langit.

Nila held a breath for a second. Well, hopefully, that is. She just didn’t want them going here is just a vain attempt to learning more about shadows.

As they walk closer and closer to the door, Nila can see three figures walking towards them from the dark part of the hallway. Headless figures with porcelain white skin shining under the lamp, wearing frilly and colorful catwalk worthy clothes. 

They stopped walking.

“Those are… mannequins, right?” Langit's voice is a whisper.

“Right.”

Nila didn’t know what to say. She’s quite sure those are mannequins, but…

“So… why are they moving then?” he took a step back. “Why are they approaching us?”

After Langit said that, the mannequins stopped in their tracks. Silent. But before Nila and Langit could sigh in relief, they moved again. This time, they run towards them.

Their heels clacking harder than before; arms reaching forwards, grasping at Nila and Langit with their long shiny nails. And Nila can hear screeching sounds coming from them.

The mannequins are moving, and they’re out for blood.

“RUN!”

Out of instinct and fear, Nila grabbed Langit’s left arm and started running the other way. The way that doesn’t have mannequins chasing them. And fortunately, the other way is just a straight hallway.

As they run, Nila eyed the vases and sculptures. They seemed to be quite fragile and oh, she would do anything to slow the mannequins down. She let go of Langit’s arm. “Run faster!”

Without question, Langit dashed forward, leaving Nila slightly behind. Nila then clenched her fist and took a deep breath, eyeing a vase she’s going to run past.

As soon she passed it, she pushed the table backward. It wobbled and fell, dropping the vase to the ground, and it crashed with a loud noise.

She quickly turned to see the mannequins' reactions. They seemed to be scared or something because they halted for a second and screeched at the vase.

It slowed them down, Nila exhaled. It really did.

“Langit! Drop the vases!” she shouted. Langit didn’t answer, he just started pushing tables he passed by.

After dropping a bunch more vases, they finally arrived at the room with the catwalk. They came running in without even closing the door, running through the audience seats, pushing aside rows of chairs in front of them.

“W-where should we go?” said Langit between his breaths.

“Back! Let’s just go back!” Nila kicked a fallen chair to her left side. She didn't know what to do. She never prepared herself to be chased by mannequins in a fashion show venue.

After cleaning their path, both of them jumped to the catwalk and dashed behind the curtains and down the set of stairs, stopping for a brief second to catch their breath while faint screeching sounds started to echo inside the catwalk room.

Nila slowly walked to the door they came in from while trying to control her breath. Her whole body feels burning and aching. But she can’t stop now.

She leaned against the door, feeling her knees weakening. Her right hand grabbed the knob, turning it as hard as she could, but it didn’t budge. She tried again. Again. Again. But the only thing that changes is the bandage on Nila’s hand is starting to get looser.

“T-the door won’t open,” Nila managed to talk even when her lungs were still gasping for air. There’s no time to pick the lock or try and break the door down. Not when the mannequins are still coming at them. She turned back to Langit. “W-we need to go somewhere safe first.” 

“Then, t-the makeup room…” Langit pointed to the door beside him. “I checked it before. That door… was open…”

Langit dragged his aching feet as quickly as possible into the makeup room with Nila behind him.

After she got in, Nila slammed the door shut. She still can hear the mannequins fumbling through the metal chairs they’ve thrown around, screeching at the metallic sound it created when moved.

And fortunately for her, the door’s key is still on the keyhole.

Nila twisted it as hard as she can with her bandaged hand, locking the door, hoping at least it’ll keep the screeching mannequins outside for a few minutes more. And maybe, just maybe, she can find a way out before they get to them.

She took a breath as deep as she could. Her whole body, especially her feet, still feels burning. The thought of sitting down feels really tempting and her eyes quickly darted around the room she’s in.

The room is a bright backstage make-up room; with costumes upon costumes on hangers, strong perfume scent in the air, all sorts of make-up palettes on desks, and of course, a big mirror with light bulbs around it. Nila walked towards the desk, just in front of the mirror. 

Seeing her messy hair and tired face reflected on the mirror made Nila want to punch it: not because she’s afraid of the shadows, but because it has caused so much trouble. And one of the troubles it caused is throwing her into another world… or something.

She sighed, pulling one of the chairs from under the desk and sitting down on it. Meanwhile, Langit sat down on the floor with his legs stretched forward, examining his broken glasses.

The rim seemed to be quite broken and the glasses were cracked. He put it inside his shirt pocket and pinched his nose bridge. Of course, this whole getting chased by mannequins thing is frustrating him up too. 

“Langit, we need to make a plan to get out of here.”

“We really do.” he stood up while leaning on the nearby wall to support his weight. He started walking towards the desk.

Nila pulled the chair next to the one she’s sitting on. And Langit plopped on it, letting out a long sigh. He briefly turned to his left, catching a glance of himself in the mirror and turned his head down as quickly as possible. “What should we do now?”

What was that? Nila thought to herself. Why did he refuse to look at the mirror? Is he… starting to see something there too? Nila wanted to ask, but it might not be the best time to do it.

“We need to find a way to open that door,” said Nila. “Maybe we can break it down or something. Do you have any idea?”

But Langit didn’t respond to her question. He just sighed and tapped his finger on the table, seemingly doing that without realizing it.

“Hey, Langit. Did you hear me?” Nila waved her hand in front of Langit's face, and he finally snapped back to reality, answering by mumbling a small ‘yes’.

She wanted to ask him if he’s okay, but the answer is definitely ‘no’. Because well, even she has become exhausted too. First, time stopped, Dianti suddenly went missing—probably because she didn’t want to answer Nila’s question, then they’re entering this place that showed out of nowhere in an attempt to learn more about shadows, just to be chased by mannequins… 

“I know you’re tired but we don’t know how much time until those mannequins find us again.”

“I know,” his voice sounded as toneless as always, but Nila can hear it slightly cracking, “it’s just… this whole thing…”

“Yeah, it has become dangerous.” Nila thought back to the mannequins outside. “Too dangerous.”

“More than that, actually,” he mumbled. It didn’t seem to be meant for Nila to hear, so she dismissed it. She didn’t want to pressure him.

Nila sighed. “Well, we still don’t know what the mannequ—”

“Ugh, just shut up, alright! Nothing has backfired yet!”

Nila leaned back a bit. He didn’t seem to be talking to her. And why is he suddenly shouting?

“Langit?”

“... all of that isn’t true.” he shook his head in frustration. “Why would I confess to something I’ve never done…”

Confess? What is he talking about?

“Langit, hey. Calm down.” she leaned forwards and touched his shoulder. But he jerked her hand off.

"Why should I calm down when he keeps saying that everything is already falling apart and I need to accept that?” His eyes seemed a little bit hollower than usual. “And he dared to say that nothing I do will work… nothing I do will make her look at me…”

Langit stood up from his chair and started walking toward the door, shoulders slumping, mumbling incoherent things. Nila also stood up, anxious and nervous feelings started sinking in her stomach.

“You shouldn’t go out, the mannequins are still out there.” She wanted to grab Langit’s hand, but she’s afraid he’ll push her away again, and she didn’t want to scare him. Langit ignored her and kept walking.

But this ‘he’ he’s been talking about… his hollow eyes… it reminded her of how Bayu talked and looked yesterday…

"I don't want to listen to him anymore…" he started banging on the door while losing his footing, slowly dropping down on his knees.

Did Langit also see the shadows in the mirror? Is he going to try and kill himself too? Is he going to let himself be killed by the mannequins?

Suddenly, all lights in the room flickered in a frenzy. 

The sounds… the bells… Nila can hear them again, ringing inside her ears. Her mind raced back to when Bayu tried to take the mirror shard away from her.

But before she can do anything, black shadows cast over Langit, enveloping him, coiling around his arms, body, legs, neck—dragging him.

She wanted to shout, she wanted to move, but the shadows… they’re… stopping her somehow, chaining her feet down. They’re laughing at how helpless she is. Laughing at how she can’t do anything.

The shadows started to cover the whole of Langit’s body while he tried to hold back sobs, holding back his voice. They dragged him down, down, melting him into nothingness.

And just like that, Langit disappeared.

Gone. 

Devoured by the shadows.

Nila can feel chills running over her whole body.

What just happened? Why can’t she move? Why can’t she help him? Why did she just stand there like a fool? She laughed at herself.

A faint sound of bells from somewhere started to ring. Somewhere afar. And her attention turned to the door. It’s coming from outside; from the door.

Nila raced over and grabbed the knob.

When Dianti disappeared, the bells and the door led to… this place, so maybe, maybe, if she opened this door, it would lead to somewhere else. Somewhere where she can find Langit. The Langit that had been consumed by the shadows. Nila fiddled with the lock a bit, trying to unlock it with her shaky, bandaged hands.

Who knows what those shadows want from him, but Nila wouldn’t let them do anything.

She would never want people to be in danger when she still can help them. Not now. Not ever.

The lock opened with a click and for a second Nila breathed a sigh of relief.

Slowly, she pushed the door open, feeling a gust of wind coming from beyond the door. As she opened the door wider, she’s greeted by what seemed like an entrance to a manor.

Still a bit hesitant that she would willingly go deeper into this weird world, Nila walked halfway through the door.

The entrance is a big open room with surprisingly little things in it. Just a few tables and small cupboards and… that’s it. It just looks like a place where someone just moved in and didn’t have time to unpack just yet. But the thing that caught her eyes the most is the wall.

Frames upon frames of pictures are displayed on the wall. All of one particular girl.

Even though each picture is different, all of them featured a girl—looks a few years older than her—smiling with her long wavy blonde hair, shining blue eyes, and pale skin.

It… puts Nila off. Why would someone need that many pictures of themselves? 

She brushed off her uneasiness as best as she could and went through the door. The warm sunlight greeted her from a big stained glass window to her right. It feels so much better than being in that venue. She sighed. At least that’s a plus side. 

From across the room, she can see a woman wearing what seemed to be a maid's clothes, sweeping while humming a song facing away from her. At least there’s a person in this place, Nila thought to herself. The total silence in that fashion show venue just made her nervous.

But still, every step she took echoed, echoed, echoed, keeping Nila feeling that sense of uneasiness. Nila wanted to just rush in and search every room in this place for Langit, but that wouldn’t be the best option. She clenched her fist. As much as she’s worried about him, it’s almost always better to keep her head cool and devise a plan when she can. 

As Nila approaches the maid, she can hear her sweeping the floor while humming, singing a song about love. But Nila didn’t have time to listen to her song. She only needs to know if this maid knows Langit and possibly his whereabouts.

She cleared her throat and started speaking. “Excuse me—”

But Nila’s words were cut short when the maid turned around.

“Yes?” Despite the cheerful answer from the maid, her mouth didn't move.

Because there’s nothing on her face aside from skin. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. Nothing.

And Nila isn’t going to question it. No. No. No. Not after she got thrown into a weird world that connected her to this place, which is another weird world, she presumed. This is… just fine. A faceless person is as normal as screeching mannequins. Yes. Certainly. She should act like normal.

“Do you know… um, Langit?” She’s not sure how to address him to this maid. But hey, at least she’s talking normally to the faceless person.

“Ah, the master?” Nila could hear the faceless maid smile. “Of course I know him!”

The master? Are the maids working for him? Is this Langit’s manor? If so, then who’s the girl on the pictures plastered on the wall? His sister? His girlfriend? His mother? She shook her head. She shouldn’t be asking that now.

“Do you know where he is?”

“He’s in his bedroom, just turn right and up to the planetarium.”

“Well, um, thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” the maid giggled before going back to sweeping and humming her song again.

Nila turned back and slowly walked the way that the faceless maid told. She tried not to think about how the maid was able to talk without a mouth—well, without anything on her face—but nothing makes sense anymore, so she set aside all her thoughts that didn't correlate to finding Langit while walking a little bit faster.

After a sharp turn to the right, she’s greeted by gold walls with rows of suits of armors lining the hallway. Unlike the entrance, this hallway didn’t have any windows. The only light source in the room is a grand chandelier above her head.

Nila wondered what would happen if the chandelier is extinguished. Will the room be pitch dark? Will the armors suddenly turn into moving armors like the mannequins? Nila shuddered just thinking about it. She should have something to protect herself. Against the possibly moving armors and the shadows. 

Her eyes darted to the suits of armor.

The lights bouncing off them blinded Nila a little so that she needed to squint to look at them. Each armor is holding a weapon. Axe, maces, swords, spears, bows; all sorts of medieval weapons and even some she didn’t know the names of. 

Nila approached one of the armor holding a rapier and twisted the gloves a little bit to loosen its grip, feeling the coldness of the armor against her hand. It’s her first time holding a weapon, and she didn’t want to hold something too heavy or too hard to grip. Besides, she just wants to hold onto it for self-defense, and if she plays her cards right, she won’t have to use it against anything.

The rapier is fully silver, glistening under the chandelier light as Nila held it as best as she could with her bandaged hand. It’s actually not her light as she thought. It’s quite heavy. She turned it around, examining every bit of it and wondered if she should pick something else that is actually light, like a dagger.

But Nila already felt amazed by the rapier. Aside from the sweeping hilt that seemed so elegant, the blade of this one is wavy, kind of like a kris. It’s unlike any rapiers she’s seen before and if she needs to be honest, it looks quite cool.

Her grip on the hilt of the rapier is tightened and she sighed. It’s… not the time to admire weapons. She needs to find Langit then get out of whatever this place is. And maybe, they’ll find Dianti after going back to the real world so she can tell Nila what she knows about the shadows and how it fits in with why they suddenly encounter a door into that fashion show venue. But maybe she can ask her about it tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after the next day. She knows she has experienced enough things today.

Nila started to walk again, but her mind is still wondering about what she’s been experiencing for the past one day. She’s been in Caturangga for only two days and she’s already neck-deep into this weird incident that made time stop and transported her to a different world.

Her feet brought her to a big silver double-leaf door at the end of the hallway. It’s made out of steel, and just by looking at it Nila feels pushing it will be painful for her already aching body. But there’s nowhere else to go, so even if she breaks her bones, she’ll need to push this door and… well… she can probably meet Langit if what that maid said was true.

Bracing her shoulder, Nila started to push the door while leaning on it. It opened quite slowly. So when Nila thought the gap was big enough for her to slip in, she stopped pushing and slipped through it. 

While still breathing heavily, Nila examined the room in front of her.

The bedroom didn’t even resemble a bedroom. The walls are still filled with the pictures of this one girl, but her eyes immediately glanced at the curved roof that… displayed the night sky. Like a planetarium. She wanted to laugh. When the faceless maid said ‘up to the planetarium’, she didn’t think the bedroom and planetarium were one and the same.

And there’s no machine used to display the night sky in the middle. Instead, there are rows of white wooden chairs leading up to a ceremony altar decorated with white fabrics and blue roses with a big—twice Nila’s height—bronze statue of a naga wrapping itself. Well, Nila is quite sure the maid didn’t mention anything about the wedding altar.

But why is there a wedding altar here? Inside a manor? In someone’s bedroom and planetarium? Or maybe this is not the bedroom. This didn’t look like a bedroom. Maybe she took a wrong turn.

But just when she’s about to turn around and possibly just go back to the makeup room, she hears a voice. She turned to the left side of the room where she wasn’t looking and the voice was coming from.

A figure stood there, facing the pictures on the wall. And judging by who’s ‘bedroom’ is this, that’s definitely Langit. He must be.

“L-LANGIT!”

Without hesitation she started dashing towards the figure, ignoring all of her limbs screaming in pain.

“What happened? The lights were flickering, there are shadows, and suddenly you… disappeared! And the bells…”

But Langit didn’t turn around.

As she started walking and got closer to him, she could hear him mumbling something in a language she didn’t understand. Is it French? She kind of recognized the accent, but she’s just not sure. Besides the sudden change in language though, there’s also something else off about him… 

“Langit?” Still wary, Nila called out to Langit one more time. And then, he finally turned to face Nila.

“Ah, you’re finally here!  _ Mon chevalier _ !”

His voice is more enthusiastic and his face is happier than she ever saw. It caught her off-guard. Everything about him is just so different. The uniform they wore today is the scout uniform, but Langit has changed into clothes fitting for a prince in blue and gold, complete with all the chains and embroidery. In his right hand is a big flower bouquet filled with blue roses. His either dark red or brown hair is also gelled back.

But the most notable one is his eyes; his iris changed color from light blue to glowing yellow.

Nila can feel her grip on the whole reality start slipping through her hands. 

Just what is happening?

And… what did he just call her? Did he really didn’t know her name? She thought he must’ve known it already.

“Mon… chevalier? You know my name---”

But he cut her off. “Yes, you're my gallant knight! You’re finally here! And with you, the kingdom will finally be saved and I will be reunited with my Beau!”

Time stopping, Dianti and him suddenly disappearing, this weird world, the mannequins, the faceless maids: Nila is starting to accept that everything she has far experienced didn't have any logical explanation as this Langit with the yellow irises talked.

“Langit.” Nila took a few steps forward, steeling her voice so it won’t crack. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the plan of saving the kingdom, of course.”

“The kingdom?” Nila would hold her head in confusion if she’s not holding a rapier. “What kingdom?” 

“The Caturangga kingdom, of course!”

The… school? Why did he refer to the school as a kingdom? And saving it? Is he referring to the incidents? The shadow? Everything is just so different about him… she can’t understand half of the things he’s talking about.

“Caturangga is our school. It’s not a kingdom.” Nila emphasized the word ‘our’. “And you’re not a prince. So let’s just… find the exit and go back.”

“But I’m a real prince, don’t you see?” he whined and gestured to the clothes he’s wearing. Then he waved his left hand. “It’s understandable you don’t know, though. My father never talked about me after all.” his voice got a little quieter for a second. 

“So, let me introduce myself!” A split second later, he’s back to his cheerful tone.

He opened his right arm that’s still holding the bouquet wide while his left is on his chest. Then he bowed and stood back up again in one elegant move. “I’m Langit Aritonang, The Unspoken Prince of the Aritonang heritage! The one who will order you to save the Caturangga kingdom and take Beau as my queen!”

Nila is starting to question if the boy in front of her is even Langit anymore, because maybe, just maybe, the shadows… have done something to him. Maybe the shadows changed him. She didn’t want that to be true though. She didn’t want anything to happen to him or anyone else. So maybe, the person in front of her isn’t Langit. She refused to believe it. She refused to believe she failed to get here quick enough.

“You can’t possibly be Langit.” Her grip on the rapier hilt tightened. “He's just a normal high schooler. He’s just involved in these shadowy things. Like me. Why would he be a prince? Why would he ‘order me’ to save the kingdom? Why would he suddenly turn,” Nila searched for the right word but can’t find it, “into you?” 

“But I am Langit, though! I am the true one!” he scowled. “Don’t you know my father owns a big kingdom? You know, a big corporation?” he sighed and continued to mumble under his breath. “Geez, why do I need to explain basic vocabulary to you…” 

And now he’s starting to irk her.

“I’m not close to him, but I know he’s nothing like you.” Nila tried to hold her voice down.

Unexpectedly, the Langit in front of her replied with a grin.

“Aah, that. Exactly.” he gazed back at the pictures on the wall, grinning with delight as he stroked the girl in the picture’s cheek, before turning back to face Nila and talk in a mocking voice.

“You barely know me. So you won’t know what's real or not.”

Nila held her ground. Even when she refused to believe the person in front of her is ‘Langit’, he’s right. No matter how much she wants to deny it. He’s right. He’s definitely right. They’ve only met twice. And the most that she knows about him is that he’s also investigating the shadows. Nothing more.

But truly, Nila wants to believe that Langit is interested in the incidents because… he wants to help finish it… for the people… not because of anything else… 

Nila let out a sigh and met those yellow eyes again.

Sometimes she can be quite naive.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, visualizing that the person in front of her is Langit—even if she didn’t believe that at all. “If you’re… really Langit, you’re still going to help me search for the source of the bells and the shadows, right?”

Langit gasped and looked hurt. He’s grasping the bouquet with two hands. “Of course I do—!” And suddenly, he laughed. “That’s what you want to say, right?” he looked over his shoulder, to the wedding altar, where the bronze naga statue is at.

Then the statue starts moving. 

The naga twisted its body and started to shed the bronze plate covering its red scales, piece by piece clanking loudly as they hit the floor. Then it lifted its head higher. Jiggling sounds came from the golden headpiece it wore as it rattled around. It moved out of its twisting position and lay down, just like a snake. 

And that’s when Nila realized in the middle of the ceremonial altar the naga is guarding, there’s a figure slumping down with their head resting against the naga itself.

“That guy absolutely needs to learn how to speak his mind,” the fake Langit said, chuckling. But Nila barely heard him. She’s turning all of her attention to the figure the naga guarded.

Nila held her breath. That’s… Langit. Wearing the scout uniform, with the red-rimmed glasses peeking out from his pocket. The same Langit that helped her yesterday and walked into the fashion show venue with her. Right there, with the naga. Knocked out… no, it looks more like he’s sleeping.

And if that’s the real Langit, then… 

She turned to face the Langit on her left. He’s clasping the bouquet with two hands and smiling at her.

“For your first task: I need you to kill him,” his smile turned into a grin. “Then, you’ll be worthy to bring me to my Beau,  _ mon chevalier _ .”


	3. Extra Information

**School**

In Caturangga, students go to school from Monday until Friday. On Tuesday until Friday starting from 06:15 until 15:50, and on Monday starting from 07:00 until 16:50 after they hold weekly flag ceremonies. They have one lunch break that starts from 11:30 until 13:00.

Each extracurricular activities or clubs have two hours of two days per week for their activities. Depending on the clubs, they either start an hour after school ended or on Saturday, starting from 08:00 until 10:00.

Each student is assigned to a class, and teachers come to their class to teach, akin to Japanese high school. The years are divided into three; X, XI, and XII.

In public and some private Indonesian high schools, the classes are divided by major/specialization of certain subjects. Caturangga followed this pattern and divide it into two categories:

IPA (Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam) / Science majors who learn biology, chemistry, and physics.

IPS (Ilmu Pengetahuan Sosial) / Social majors who learn economics, sociology, and geography.

Each major has a cross interest subject, a specialization subject from another major they must take to expand their knowledge. But scores from the cross interest subject don't have a big impact on overall scores.

For IPA, they have economics as their cross interest subject. As for IPS, they have biology. Each major has three classes, so in total each year has six classes, each class filled with 35 students.

The classes are referred like this: XI IPS 1. To breakdown; the 'XI' is the year, the 'IPS' is the major/specialization, and '1' is the class number.

* * *

**Uniform**

Different from public school, private school has a more diverse uniform since the designs are created by schools themselves with the exception of the Monday uniform which is also used every time schools hold flag ceremonies.

In Caturangga, students are allowed to wear either a short-sleeved or a long-sleeved shirt (except on Friday where students must use long-sleeved shirts), but the length of skirts must be right on the knees or lower, while pants must be under the ankle. They also must always use black shoes and white socks above the ankle. The uniform schedule is as follows:

 **Monday** : white shirt (complete with government-mandated attributes) with grey skirts or pants, a grey tie, and a black belt

 **Tuesday** : white shirt with grey skirts or pants, a red tie, and black and brown checkered u-neck vest

 **Wednesday** : brown scout uniform with dark brown pants, and a red and white tie

 **Thursday** : white shirt with black skirts or pants, a red tie, and a light brown blazer

 **Friday** : white shirt with dark brown plaid skirts or pants


End file.
